Page 62 of Assassin's Mark
Chapter Thirty
After rummaging for a moment, Geneva pulled a slip of paper from one of the drawers. “Here it is.”
“You kept it all this time?” Levi asked. I caught a hint of suspicion in the words, but I didn’t care. All I cared about right now was getting that paper in my hands, seeing my mother‘s handwriting for the first time. A mother who loved me. Wrapped me and carried me insteadof handing me over to nannies. I couldn’t remember a single picture of me as a child in my mother’s arms.
Had Caroline cherished me? Was that even possible?
Geneva placed the paper in my trembling hand.
“Recognize it?” Levi asked.
The address, I assumed he meant. But I hadn’t taken it in. I was too busy staring at the graceful loops and elegant lines that made up the words. My mother’s handwriting.My mother’s—
“Abby.”
I jerked my gaze from the paper.
“The address. Do you recognize it?”
I looked again, then slowly shook my head. “No.” In town, obviously, given the city and zip code, but I didn’t know street names well beyond the major thoroughfares, not being a driver myself. I reluctantly passed the paper to Levi. “Do you?”
“No.” He looked up at Geneva. “And she never came back? Notto pick up mail or her things, nothing?”
“Nothing,” the older woman confirmed sadly. “I knew when she didn’t that something wasn’t right, but”—she shrugged—“who would listen to me?”
About a homeless girl who had gotten herself pregnant? Not many people, unfortunately. The story was too common in the big city to care about them all.
I reached for the address. Levi seemed reluctant to part withit, but released it to my care. When I caught myself rubbing my fingertips over the surface as if the paper held some clue beyond the few lines written on it, I slipped it into my pocket.
“Wherever she is, she would be so proud to see you, little Abby,” Geneva said.
Would she? I gave Levi a desperate, get-me-out-of-here-now look. He stood immediately.
“Mrs. Sanderson, thank you for your help.”
“Anytime, anytime.” She reached for me, her wizened hands feeling far too delicate around mine. “You come back to see me sometime, okay, dear? I’ll tell you all about your mama. I bet I even have a few pictures here somewhere.”
My heart squeezed. I wanted more than anything to come back, but I didn’t want to place Geneva in danger. Still… “Of course I will.” I leaned in, brushing a kiss on herpowdery-soft cheek. “Thank you so much.”
Geneva patted my hand one last time, and Levi led me out the door.
The ride back was heavy with silence. Levi insisted on stopping at a drive-through despite my protests that I couldn’t eat. Just the thought of food made me feel green. Smelling it wasn’t much better, so I cracked my window enough to let fresh air in but not the rain that had begun tofall.
“So Camilla Roslyn wasn’t your mother,” Levi finally said.
I kept my head turned, biting down on my thumbnail until the cuticle screamed with pain.
“She left to go to your father.”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know the name of the man she was seeing.” I clenched my fist. “We don’t know that I’m Caroline’s either. It could all be a coincidence. My birth certificate—”
“Is easily forged,”Levi pointed out. “Especially for someone who has as much money as Derrick does.”
True.
“Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that she is your mother.” Levi stopped at a four-way, then went straight. “She didn’t marry your father, obviously.”
“He would already have been married.” Derrick and Camilla had been together a couple of years before I made an appearance.
